Content Analysis of Microstructure of Oxford English Sindhi-Dictionary 2010

Abstract

The aim of this research was to critically analyze the microstructure of the oxford English Sindhi dictionary (2010). In order to achieve the aim of the study, an objective was set to find out the way information was presented in the microstructure of OESD (2010) which was the sample of the study. Afterwards, the study was designed qualitatively as per the nature of the study and it was decided after going through a huge corpora related to critical dictionary analysis. The dictionary was analyzed through content analysis. This required a sample to be selected and taken from every twentieth page of the dictionary. The results of the study were discussed descriptively. The results of the study showed that there was a lot of information present in the microstructure of the dictionary. This information was related to meaning, labels including word class, symbols, abbreviations etc. It also included pronunciation of words. First of all meaning was present at lexical level and in the form of definitions. Secondly, the word class of the entries was also given in front of them. Moreover, abbreviations and acronyms were also present in the microstructure but these were not differentiated from each other. Most importantly, certain phonemes were presented in a wrong way. That is to say the symbols which were given for the sounds did not represent the actual sounds of the given words. This was found to be one of the mistakes which might have taught the learners wrong pronunciation of the words.

Keywords: lexicography, microstructure, dictionary, critical dictionary analysis, OESD (2010).

DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/10-3-04

Publication date: February 29^th 2020